Friday, March 6, 2009

CHARLESTON, West Virginia, March 5, 2009 (ENS) - Five people were arrested today while they were protesting blasting near Schumate dam on the Edwight mountaintop removal site operated by Massey Energy. These are the latest arrests in a wave of demonstrations against coal mining that is conducted by blasting off the tops of Appalachian mountains and dumping the rock waste into valley streams below.

The demonstrators said they believe it is urgently necessary to protect the children at Marsh Fork Elementary from the pending danger of a massive dam failure of the Schumate sludge impoundment on the hillside above the school in Sundial, West Virginia.

As they displayed a banner reading "Stop Blasting, Save The Kids" atop Massey Energy's Edwight mountaintop removal site, all five were arrested and charged with trespassing.

Among the group were Joe Gorman, a student from West Virginia University; Cassandra Rice a native of Fairmont, West Virginia; Andrew Munn of University of Michigan and member of Student Environmental Action Coalition; Nicole Moston, a freelance videographer; and Mat Louis-Rosenberg of the group Mountain Justice.

Since 2005, local residents have demanded that Marsh Fork Elementary School be moved to protect the children from a massive dam failure like the one that happened at the Tennessee Valley Authority's coal-fired power plant in Harriman, Tennessee on December 22 last year.

The Schumate Dam holds back 2.8 billion gallons of toxic coal waste in a sludge pond above the Marsh Fork Elementary School and upriver from the towns of Whitesville and Sylvester in the Coal River Valley. …